The Company Store Gift Shop
Every coal camp in the valley had its company store. Ours is the museum gift shop, with books on Coal Creek history, kids’ coal helmets and lanterns, t-shirts, handmade gifts, Christmas ornaments, and more. Everything is sold here at the museum, so stop by during open hours to browse.
In the shop: Books · For kids · T-shirts · Handmade gifts & ornaments · Coal, scrip & souvenirs
Books: local history, family research & recipes
Coal Creek: A Valley Before and After Coal
Illustrated local history · Robert Griffith
The story of the valley from early settlement and the railroad to company towns, the Coal Creek War, the Fraterville and Cross Mountain disasters, and what remains today, with photographs throughout.
Master Alphabetical Burial Index: Anderson County, Tennessee
Compiled by Robert Griffith, museum historian
Cemetery listings for the Coal Creek region and surrounding communities, gathered from volunteer headstone readings, transcriptions, and historical records into one alphabetical reference. A good first stop when you are looking for where an ancestor is buried.
From the Tipple to the Table
Recipes from coal country kitchens · Robert Griffith
Hearty suppers, lunch-pail bites, church-supper classics, and sweet treats, plus pantry basics, mountain remedies, and favorites from museum friends.
Books: novels of the Coal Creek Valley
The Coal Creek Valley Trilogy tells the valley’s three great stories through the eyes of the people who lived them. Each book stands on its own. In historical order: Thistle Switch (1891), Letters From the Dark (1902), and The Watch (1911).
Thistle Switch
A Novel of the Coal Creek War · Robert Griffith
Miners, families, a leased convict, and a militia officer are caught up in the Coal Creek War of 1891–1892, when stockades rose on the hills and the valley fought the convict-lease system.
Letters From the Dark
A Novel of the Fraterville Mine Disaster · Robert Griffith
On May 19, 1902, the Fraterville Mine took 216 men and boys. This novel follows Maggie Powell and the women left behind, and the farewell letters written underground.
The Watch
A Novel of the Cross Mountain Mine Disaster · Robert Griffith
On December 9, 1911, an explosion traps the miners of Cross Mountain. The valley waits and rescuers search the dark in the book that completes the trilogy.
Christmas in Coal Creek
A novel · Robert Griffith
December 1900. A widow who lost her husband to the mine finds a stranger collapsed in the snow outside her door. A Christmas story of grace, grief, and the stubborn courage of a mining family.
Books coming soon
These books are in the works. Ask at the front desk, or check back here.
- Haunts of the Coal Creek Valley. Local ghost stories, told alongside the documented history behind them.
- A Coal Creek coloring book for kids. Mine life, company towns, and coal trains for young visitors to color.
- A nonfiction history of the Coal Creek Valley, including a volume on the valley’s African American miners and families.
More local authors: We’re adding books by other authors who write about the Coal Creek Valley, Anderson County, and Appalachian coal mining.
For young miners
Children’s coal miner helmets and lanterns, so kids can head home from their visit looking the part.
T-shirts
Coal Creek Miners Museum t-shirts. Ask at the front desk about sizes and colors.
Handmade gifts & Christmas ornaments
Handmade items and Christmas ornaments, a good way to take a piece of the Coal Creek Valley home or give it to someone else.
Coal, scrip & souvenirs
Coal items, scrip, and other keepsakes from coal country.